


Feud: The Beginning

by MidnightChild18



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightChild18/pseuds/MidnightChild18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the age of magic, Crafters ruled supreme. They worked the greatest magics and the highest sacrifice, but their time has come to an end. Queen Noira of Thear decimated their numbers in revenge, until only one remained. Her name is Ysabelle D'Aurum. Hidden in the Forest of Sorrows, she waited for a chance to sink her blade into the tyrannic queen's throat. In the first book of a trilogy, Ysabelle finds allies in unexpected places and learns more about the queen's work on the land. The adventure awaits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feud: The Beginning

The forest was cold and damp. A young man huddled down as he treaded carefully, flinching at every twig that snapped, every time the leaves rustled and twisted animals cry out in a day that was neither morning nor night. His wool cloak helped to keep the cold at bay, but could not banish the ice within his heart. There had never been a land so barren and wrought of life.

But his mother told him, of a time long past, where trees bear luscious fruits of myriads of colour, stood proud and tall in a cloak of nature's green. The land flourishing with life; man and all of nature living in harmony. Before her mother's time, her grandmother's, and even her great-grandmother's. Where life brought hardships that did not break a man's soul.

Seeing the desolate waste and monstrosity that is the Forest of Sorrows, he could not help but doubt his mother's fanciful tales, and curse their diseased Queen Noira. She was a powerful mage, yet she could not be bothered to care for the land that she was given, prefering to spend all of its hard-earned money on wars and parties and treatment to keep her beauty at its prime. Instinctively, the man uttered a prayer of forgiveness, and cursed. Years of servitude were hard to shed, when he was taught to always fear and respect Noira. My mother's dead because of her, he thought bitterly, and I have joined the resistance. The side that had truth and justice.

A cloaked person hid amongst the branches of the dead trees. The dark cloak shimmered in places, sometimes vanishing altogether, as it sat in the fork of one tree, watching him blindly stumbling deep into the heart of the dreaded forest. Its eyes, crafted beneath strong arrogant brows, was a startling pair of light gold and silver grey, following the man's silhouette. One monstrous recurve bow rested on his lap, nocked and armed. Waiting.

A haunting combination of howling and roaring reverberated in the forest, silencing it. The male, barely out of adolescence, froze as his scalp prickled beneath the grey hood of his cloak.

It could not be.

Without looking to see what it was, he burst into a frantic sprint, away from the thundering footsteps. He could not die. He refused to consider the possiblity of it. Coming to the diseased forest had been his choice, his chance to prove himself. I am not returning in a coffin, he vowed, recklessly crashing through the decaying undergrowth. A sudden burst of energy coursed through him. He ran faster.

Crows shrieked a death sentence as he ducked under low branches. Rabid animals scurried and snapped at his ankles, finding sadistic glee at chasing him to his death. Monstrous lizards and fanged skeletal bats the size of a man's head battered and tore at his face and clothes, shredding them. The muddy ground was black as soot, from ashes carried over from burning villages. Hollow wails befitting banshees covered the air, mimicking those of women tortured in despair and children forever robbed of their childhood.

Suddenly, his feet gave out underneath him, and was thrown headfirst down a cliff. He screamed, eyes teary and wide in terror, clawing the empty air for any sort of purchase. The howl-roar came again, this time from above him, as he sped towards the pitifully shallow river beneath. His heart pumped twice as fast, allowing him to see and experience everything to its fullest and most minute detail. He started to pray for salvation and to go to wherever his mother was. I'm sorry, Mother, he sobbed. I'm sorry for stealing pies from Witherby's. I'm sorry for giving Tom that scar when we were five. I'm -

It felt as though he'd lost his stomach to the river, when something caught his feet, binding them together, and pulled him to a dead stop. For a moment, he'd gotten too close to the face of the cliff, but whoever controlling what bound his feet together managed to prevent his face from smashing his face flat and bloodied. Slowly, but steadily, he was pulled upwards. Another howl-roar reverberated through the forest, then ended in a gurgle within seconds. His eyes widened. Dear God, he thought weakly, a wolfhound. Whoever hauling me up could kill a wolfhound.

He gagged as the brutish, cleanly beheaded wolfhound plunged downwards to the trickling river. Its face was in a state of almost-humourous shock and terror, with a short muzzle and hackles raised, a mix of shaggy wolf and dog, and a huge matted mane that had bone-like armour protruding out of its spine. The fur was a messed-up assortment of different hues, nausea inducing to look at for too long, and alien, elongated-blue-edged gold eyes. Its stench of rotting vegetables and spoiled meat was infinitely worse.

In the last few feet before seeing his saviour, the young man was suddenly thrown onto hard-packed, rocky land and landed on his arm. A loud snap echoed around them. Fire raced up his broken arm. Tears blurred his vision. He gritted his teeth to prevent from crying out.

A groan escaped as he was pushed up to face the permanently dark, cloudy sky. He managed not to scream when he was sharply poked in the arm. There was a low curse.

"Broken in two places," a man's voice muttered. "Dislocated his knee when he fell too. What an imbecile." The man flushed.

He groaned again, but not in pain. He was an invalid, for a good three months at least. The prince couldn't wait that long for a reply message.

The war could easily finish by then, and the cause he fought for lost. He had to get well, or pass the message on to someone who could relay it to its intended person.

"I need to find Ysabelle D'Aurum," he gasped out, blindly looking for his savior. "M-My m-m-master has a-a message for h-her."

The cloaked person analyzing the extent of his injuries froze. Slowly, the hood lifted, revealing a pair of familiar yet unforgettable pair of light gold, silver grey eyes. Even in his state, he could feel the intensity of the stare directed at him. "She's dead, boy."

Despite the pain, he felt angered. "I'm seventeen! A man!"

It straightened. "A man who is foolish enough to go stomping about in one of the most dangerous forests in Thear just to seek the attentions of a girl. You're just a child, boy, compared to me."

Fear rose in the young man, or perhaps more befitting, the boy. "How old are you? You're n-not a-a-a witch, are you?"

"No. I just happen to be close to five hundred years old." That wasn't very comforting. It occurred to him then, and his stomach lurched. Ysabelle D'Aurum was dead. All the hard work and travelling and vicious monsters...wasted. He struggled againt the person as it untied the ropes that held him down. "If we don't set your arms and get your knee back where it belongs, you won't survive past the next week."

"What point is there of it?" He sulked, tears threatening to fall. "I failed my duty. My master will die." It sighed.

There was a blur of movement. Pain bloomed in his head. He blacked out.

I stared at the boy before me.

I'd kept him drugged for the last month, to prevent his thrashing about from opening the relatively new wound beside his shoulder blades. He was of nondescript features; brown hair, brown eyes, skinny body and a wide mouth. Clearly not of Thearian descent, or perhaps took after a foreign ancestor. He had guts; that I had to admit. No one without courage would even dare to enter this forest, or perhaps he was insane. But he did not have the symptoms of madness. Perhaps it was a new type, one that caused men to lose all sense and do something sensible people would not?

Moreover, who was this boy's master? How did he come to have knowledge of that name?

Only my parents, my grandparents and a selected few knew of it; all of them are either dead or missing. Who else could have told this boy and his master, and maybe others? I could not think of anyone. I knew too little of my parents' life before me. They could've easily had enemies, who could betray this secret to this boy's master.

But why, did he specifically ask for me, other than for reasons I refuse to comprehend? There were others who lived closer to the edge of this damned place, whose payment were much cheaper, though not of the same calibre. I was no one; I had to be. There are lesser customers these years, and more are fearful. But they never told me what, or why.

I pulled my cloak off and shook it out over the fireplace. Many of the plants in the forest carried poison through the air itself; this was one of few ways to prevent death. I was cleaning up after the boy's thunderous crashing through the forest. He had attracted far too many beasts than was possible. Perhaps he was a latent descendant of the Were species. They tended to attract more danger than normal men can. I was tired, forced to clean up his messy work and the wolfhound that had nearly sent him to his death, the animals that strayed out into my territory when the wind blew east.

I wondered what my father would have told me to do. Let the boy die. Let the boy live. Two simple choices, yet bound in the constraints of morality and mortality. He had died without a grave, his body disintegrated by the vampire's venom, leaving no sign he had ever existed, except by the blood running through my veins, and the memory of his fight. The humanity within him fought with the work of monstrosity he became. He was one of the greatest man ever born in this land, and he taught me to fight only when given cause, yet he bound me on his deathbed, to not fight against the Queen, for I shall certainly have died, as angry as I was.

He never told me why.

The boy groaned in pain as I entered the stables where he was resting. I had not bothered to build a guestroom, when I created what became the continuous haphazard disaster that was my home. A bowl of medicinal brew and another of leftover stew from the night before floated beside me, since I did not own any trays. Perhaps I was a trifle hard when I knocked him in the head. I shook him a few times, careful not to use too much strength. He stubbornly refused to wake. I sighed, gesturing for the two bowls to place themselves on the hard-packed ground.

I landed a quick strike to his midsection. His eyes popped open, startled, and he exhaled in one loud gust, ending in pained coughs, even wheezing. I had forgotten how fragile normal men were; fighting as I did against monsters that were a shadow of their mortal selves, stronger and faster than my own extensive abilities. He stared at me for one moment, and screamed like a girl. I winced internally at the pitch. No one has ever gone to those heights before. His face was pale, and a greenish cast tinged it.

"Control yourself, or I may be tempted to do what I did to the wolfhound to you," I quietly threatened, using the low, sexless voice I reserved for customers; unsavoury or otherwise. He swallowed sickly. I picked up the brew and passed the bowl to him. "Now drink."

He cautiously sniffed once, then flinched back. "That's revolting."

"Perhaps, but if it smells bad, it has to be good for you," I replied. "Drink up." He gave me a strange look, but emptied the bowl. I picked the second, larger bowl, and dipped a magicked spoon into it, and passed the stew to the boy. "Here's your reward," I added gruffly.

The boy slowly sniffed the earthernware bowl filled with meaty stew. Beneath the deep shaodws of my hood, I could not resist rolling my eyes. If I truly wanted him dead, he'd been six feet under, throat sliced and none the wiser. He picked the spoon up eventually, and started eating. Halfway through, he suddenly stopped, dropping his spoon into the bowl, his eyes alight with unshed tears, chin wobbling. I was seized by fear. Had I overstepped my boundaries?

"Carrots," he said shakily. He looked up at me, with owlish dark brown eyes. "I l-loved c-c-carrots. Mom u-used to always add them to e-everything. She knew how much I-I l-l-loved t-them." Oh. His mother had passed away. My heart yearned to comfort him. I, too, had lost my mother, and therefore shared his grief. "H-How d-did y-y-you k-know?"

"I didn't," I answered truthfully. "I prefer food with a sharper taste, but most people would not appreciate it, so I added carrots to make the taste less sharp on the tongue. Especially for a boy mending his bones." I attempted to goad him into eating, but the silence stretched out awkwardly between us. "Are you going to finish the stew?"

He blinked owlishly. "Yes." He picked up the spoon again, and shakily finished it all, coughing slightly. I tried not to care; but I knew it too well. The cloying taste of tears swallowed, creating a scorching lump in the throat which refuses to abate, and the knowledge that he can't cry because if he did, the tears would never end, instead forcing himself to fight, because that's why they died. For a future they wanted me to have.

I slid out the small pouch hidden in my boots, shaking it slightly. A small lump of dried unripe fruit rolled out onto my gloved palm. I gave it to the boy desperately trying to be brave and sniffing continuously. "It helps the tears." He stared at me, dark brown eyes I found painfully plain suddenly the most exquisite feature on his face, and at the fruit. Slowly, he raised a hand and picked up the fruit and placed it in his mouth.

I picked up the two bowls and quickly exited.

I called the fruit soursob, since it was able to reduce any man to tears whether taken ripe or not. I had used it once before.

The howls of a tormented soul shook my house to its foundations. A boy lost in his absolute grief and pain silenced the forest for the night, as it witnessed the true death of a young boy who had lost his only mother to Queen Noira's merciless rule. Not even the wolfhounds, the most savage and active nocturnal hunter of all the creatures in the forest came out to hunt.

In the dawn of a sun blocked by poisoned clouds, a man rose from the boy's death; renewed, reborn. He cast away the remains of his grief for a purpose far beyond his own.


End file.
